[HN Gopher] Bob's Game
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Bob's Game
        
       Author : nonbirithm
       Score  : 153 points
       Date   : 2021-06-29 22:45 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
        
       | smudgy wrote:
       | Atrocity Guide has a video on Bob's Game:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A47maEySTdI
        
       | umvi wrote:
       | Wikipedia only touches on the true madness of the thing.
       | 
       | See: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobsgame/bobs-game
       | 
       | Highlights:
       | 
       | > Developed from scratch in C and completely rewritten in Java as
       | an MMO, as far as I can tell, "bob's game" may still be one of
       | the largest games (if not the largest) by one person!
       | 
       | > "bob's game" is a game about a puzzle game called 'bob's game,'
       | developed within the game by the virtual "bob" character, the
       | "final boss" of the game. It is a hybrid between Zelda, Pokemon,
       | Harvest Moon, and Earthbound, with massively multiplayer
       | elements.
       | 
       | > The 'bob's game' puzzle game inside the "bob's game" RPG is a
       | puzzle game in which you can build your own puzzle games,
       | including all existing types! It is the greatest puzzle game ever
       | made, and the only puzzle game objectively better than Tetris."
       | 
       | > "bob's game" blends the line between reality and simulation,
       | and reality and extra-dimensional reality. "bob's game" breaks
       | both the so-called "4th wall" and further yet- the "5th wall,"
       | unlocking the secrets of "the Matrix," or "the Womb" as it is
       | referred to in some editions of the Bible. "bob's game" reveals
       | the nature of the universe for what it really is to a generation
       | that needs it the most. "bob's game" is the most important thing
       | to happen to mankind in hundreds, if not thousands of years.
       | 
       | > "bob's game" is the vehicle for a prophecy, written by a "self
       | taught" "genius" "prophet." It carries within it a message that
       | will revolutionize society and change the world. It is the
       | beginning of a new era for mankind.
       | 
       | > "bob's game" actually alters reality itself for those who play
       | it. It is a key into another dimension. It teaches the secrets of
       | the heart, the secrets of mind control and psychic power to a
       | generation that has has the wool pulled over their eyes by
       | criminal syndicates.
       | 
       | > "bob's game" is the ultimate cult game. It is a new religion
       | for the modern world, inspired by and intended as a natural
       | spiritual successor to previous disguised religion games such as
       | Earthbound and Zelda and movie retellings of an ancient spellbook
       | (The Old Testament) such as "The Matrix."
       | 
       | > In 2008, after demoing it to Nintendo and turning down a job
       | offer (I'd rather work on my own game!), I showed it on the
       | internet in hopes that I would attract some publishers. Several
       | of them were interested! After deciding on one and moving near
       | their headquarters in New Jersey, unfortunately, Nintendo was
       | hesitant to license me- even though I had an office, funds, and
       | met all the qualifications. knowing I would have to rewrite the
       | whole thing to get it on other platforms, I threw a meta-protest
       | viral ad thing. Trying to be like my favorite band Nine Inch
       | Nails recent "Year Zero" viral campaign, I devised an intense and
       | clever alternate reality website that tied into the game story to
       | drum up some attention and try to get Nintendo to license me
       | anyway.
       | 
       | > I slowly learned how we are tricked by desire and greed and
       | kept weak and blinded by criminal syndicates. I realized that is
       | what I had been fighting against the whole time, subconsciously!
       | Even more incredible, I learned what humans are truly capable of-
       | discovering that we are indeed magical creatures with psychic
       | powers! It's the greatest trick in history- we are all great
       | wizards, reduced to spending our lives so distracted, we never
       | even realize our own power!
       | 
       | Also, apparently there was a $2 million stretch goal (since
       | deleted) that said (according to reddit):
       | 
       | > The Bob's Game Corporation will purchase and renovate a large
       | gothic church in Detroit and surround it with green and purple
       | spotlights, razor wire, and RoboCop "ED-209" style drone sentries
       | as the "bob's game" headquarters and final tournament location.
       | "bob" will establish himself as a real-life video game villain,
       | dominating the world's children through the use of dark ritual
       | magic infused technology.
       | 
       | This guy is either one of the greatest trolls of our time or else
       | he is very mentally unstable...
        
         | arduinomancer wrote:
         | This feels a lot like reading about TempleOS
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | Previous discussion:
       | 
       |  _13 years ago_ Indie Game Developer does 100 day protest
       | Nintendo https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=412757
       | 
       |  _8 years ago_ About the Kickstarter
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6908321
        
       | andrewclunn wrote:
       | I backed him on Kickstarter. Not the craziest or most dishonest
       | failed project I backed. It was a coin flip on whether you'd
       | actually get a finished product back in the day. No idea how it
       | is now.
        
       | Brendinooo wrote:
       | Has anyone here played it? How's the actual gameplay?
        
         | GranPC wrote:
         | The full game was never released, only two/three demos. The
         | first demo was distributed as Nintendo DS homebrew and
         | contained a fetch quest, some dialogue and the first minigame.
         | The second demo was released for the PC and included demo 1,
         | some more roaming around & dialogue, two additional minigames,
         | and an unskippable cutscene at the end where "bob" laughs for
         | over two minutes.
         | 
         | The third demo was also released for the PC, originally
         | playable in an embedded Java applet in the browser, and doesn't
         | contain much of the RPG - it's mostly just bob's game (the
         | puzzle game inside "bob's game")
         | 
         | So it's a bit hard to tell how the actual gameplay of the whole
         | thing could have been, you don't get to explore the world much
         | in these demos.
        
           | ghthor wrote:
           | We might get to play the whole thing eventually, hes still
           | working on it!
        
       | msoucy wrote:
       | Oh man. I remember this as it was coming out. It was certainly a
       | wild ride... I was in high school at the time and didn't know how
       | to react to the whole protest thing. I remember I played the heck
       | out of the demo that he released for the Nintendo DS - the Tetris
       | parody in-game, "Tetrid", was a bit of a mindbend, and could
       | probably cause seizures, but the deformed block shapes made an
       | interesting puzzle.
        
         | stalco wrote:
         | this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6jw8fv-XsQ
        
           | GranPC wrote:
           | Nope, that's bob's game (the game that "bob's game" is about)
           | - which is a mishmash of many different puzzle games into
           | one. Tetrid is inside bob's game, and it's also the first
           | minigame you encounter inside "bob's game". This is it:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP8nmaVWjDE
        
       | dang wrote:
       | We invited a repost of this article (related to the second-chance
       | pool - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308) because
       | HN loves stories of original single-person projects, especially
       | where the developer has persisted over years and has some kind of
       | unique vision.
       | 
       | I didn't read it closely, and I hope we didn't accidentally bring
       | unwanted attention to someone's personal struggle. Bob, if you're
       | reading this, we wish you all the best. Commenters, if you're
       | reading this, please be kind and let's not have any sort of
       | garish spectacle.
        
       | genjipress wrote:
       | Essentially, TempleOS, but a video game.
        
         | imjustsaying wrote:
         | One might anticipate a racing sequel featuring alphabet agents
         | that glow.
        
       | ddtaylor wrote:
       | Repo: https://github.com/bobsgame/bobsgame/ (deleted, see edit
       | below)
       | 
       | I looked at it a few weeks back and it's really strange. It has
       | really weird restrictions that don't make any sense regarding the
       | license - I'm not even sure if they even are legal. The author
       | claims he is sharing the source but that nobody else can fork it,
       | unless they fork it on GitHub?!
       | 
       | Anyhow, within a few seconds of reading the source you'll find
       | that the first thing the binary does is call home to download and
       | extract a newer .zip file from the bobsgame.com website.
       | 
       | It does this over HTTP and without any kind of signature/signing
       | of the binary.
       | 
       | Before it actually downloads the .zip file it actually tries to
       | grab a version number from a PHP script on the website that
       | doesn't exist. The website instead renders some HTML. The C++
       | casts this HTML to a number and gets 0, so it always assumes that
       | the website does not have a newer version of the game to
       | download.
       | 
       | This means if someone on the local network can DNS spoof the
       | website it will dutifully talk over unauthenticated HTTP, the
       | attacker can actually provide a PHP script that responds with a
       | high version number and then deliver the payload over a .zip
       | file.
       | 
       | It's a fascinating tale!
       | 
       | EDIT: It does appear the author has been removing things =( His
       | GitHub has been wiped clean https://github.com/robertpelloni
       | 
       | If anyone is curious here is a fork of the repository I was
       | trying to link: https://github.com/mpavlinsky/bobsgame
        
         | rozab wrote:
         | GitHub ToS requires you to allow others to fork your code on
         | GH. This policy leads to a lot of bizarre licensing decisions
         | on the site.
         | 
         | https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-o...
        
         | BugsJustFindMe wrote:
         | It's currently still archived by Software Heritage
         | https://archive.softwareheritage.org/browse/search/?q=https%...
        
         | shawabawa3 wrote:
         | Looks like the repo has been deleted
        
         | WoodenChair wrote:
         | Your link is already 404ing a minute after you posted it. Is it
         | possible Bob is reading this thread and already removed it?
        
           | ddtaylor wrote:
           | It appears so. I've updated the comment with a fresh link.
        
         | dec0dedab0de wrote:
         | _I looked at it a few weeks back and it 's really strange. It
         | has really weird restrictions that don't make any sense
         | regarding the license - I'm not even sure if they even are
         | legal. The author claims he is sharing the source but that
         | nobody else can fork it, unless they fork it on GitHub?!_
         | 
         | I don't know if the wording is legalease enough to be enforced,
         | but of course a license like this is legal. Just because you
         | can see the source code doesn't automatically grant you any
         | privileges with it. He is saying he is only allowing unmodified
         | redistribution. With an exception that you are allowed to
         | distribute a modified version of the source code for the sole
         | purpose of submitting a pull request.
         | 
         | One problem he might get into is if accepts non-trivial pull
         | requests, then the contributors copyright would come into play,
         | and things could get hairy.
        
           | jcranmer wrote:
           | The first two clauses of the license are the BSD-2-Clause
           | license, nothing weird or unusual there.
           | 
           | The third clause is... interesting. I suspect it's probably
           | legal, but it may well have unintended consequences because
           | it appears to be requiring you to use a trademark.
           | 
           | The fourth clause may fall afoul of First Sale Doctrine. It's
           | something that I wouldn't trust without talking to an IP
           | lawyer to work out what it actually means and how much is
           | actually viable to be done in an open source license.
           | 
           | The fifth clause is nullified by the terms of GitHub, I
           | think, as GitHub's ToS seems to require you to allow anyone
           | to fork your repository without encumbrance, which the fifth
           | clause tries to narrow.
        
         | meibo wrote:
         | HTTP/unsigned patches are frighteningly common in the video
         | game world.
         | 
         | One of the major MMOs doesn't do either and has some other
         | nasty stuff like easily stealable login tokens over the
         | network.
        
         | jart wrote:
         | > #bob's game is: ##THE GREATEST PUZZLE GAME EVER MADE [...]
         | bob's game is "source available" [...] but not "Open Source"
         | That means no forks except to create pull requests!
         | 
         | Would you consider deleting your fork? It goes against the
         | author's wishes and I don't feel comfortable gawking at someone
         | who might be experiencing health issues. He's clearly trying to
         | distance himself from the attention it's received.
        
           | ddtaylor wrote:
           | I don't have any forks of his code, it's the first result for
           | searching for the repo on GitHub. In either case, I do
           | believe once the source code to something has been released
           | it's fair to continue to archive it.
        
             | jart wrote:
             | Did you bring the security vulnerabilities you discovered
             | to his attention before disclosing them on hacker news?
             | Regardless of what you think is fair it's pretty clear you
             | aren't acting with his best interests in mind.
        
               | ddtaylor wrote:
               | Full disclosure is the most responsible disclosure.
        
               | duxup wrote:
               | Telling users here (some I'm sure will / would download
               | the code) seems entirely acting with the user's best
               | interests in mind.
        
       | moon2 wrote:
       | Here's an interesting video by Atrocity Guide that talks about
       | it. https://youtu.be/A47maEySTdI
        
       | duxup wrote:
       | This kinda seems like just someone throwing a fit that Nintendo
       | didn't give them an SDK / support their game?
       | 
       | There's more to making a game than just making the code and
       | hoping someone supports your efforts. From the wikipedia page, I
       | don't find the story all that sympathetic, at least as far as vs
       | Nintendo.
       | 
       | Story seems more like one of a troll or mental illness, and kinda
       | sad.
        
         | bogwog wrote:
         | I don't think that's a fair assessment. If it is mental
         | illness, it's probably the same illness that leads people to
         | become independent artists in the first place.
         | 
         | He mentioned that he got an offer to work for Nintendo and lead
         | his own team by a rep at GDC, but he turned it down because he
         | didn't understand what they were offering him. I could 100%
         | believe that because I could 100% see myself doing the same
         | thing.
         | 
         | He also later said that the ridiculous behavior was all a viral
         | marketing stunt gone wrong, which, again, I 100% believe
         | because I could see myself...maybe not _actually doing it_ ,
         | but certainly coming up with a similar idea to get attention
         | for the project I worked so hard on.
         | 
         | IMO the best thing for him to do is lay low until everyone
         | forgets about him, so that he can release his game in the
         | future, maybe under a different title. Although that might be
         | hard because it seems the Youtube documentary crowd has started
         | to shine a spotlight on him recently (that's how I learned
         | about this guy a few weeks ago)
         | 
         | Also, he did release a game titled "Bob's Game" on Steam, but
         | it was a puzzle game rather than an RPG. I think the idea was
         | that the RPG told the story of a game developer named Bob who
         | was working on a game, and the game he released was the game
         | developed by the Bob character in the RPG. It's a pretty cool
         | concept, and I really hope this guy gets around to releasing
         | the full thing some day.
        
           | hellotomyrars wrote:
           | I find it very hard to believe that Nintendo, especially
           | Nintendo of that era, would have offered him a job to lead a
           | team.
           | 
           | I think it is pretty clear based on his behavior and the
           | things he has said that he has some very serious issues. I
           | won't discount his talent, he clearly has talent and skill,
           | though he hasn't made good on a lot of the promises he made
           | and boasted of.
           | 
           | My sincerest hope is that he would get the help he needs and
           | use it to focus his energy and talent into his projects
           | because as it is I don't think there will ever be anything
           | resembling his original vision formally released, and that is
           | a shame for everyone.
        
           | duxup wrote:
           | >He also later said that the ridiculous behavior was all a
           | viral marketing stunt gone wrong
           | 
           | If that's the case ... still seems like 'guy throwing fit'.
        
         | jonny_eh wrote:
         | The sad/hopeful thing is that if this were to occur today,
         | they'd likely have a much easier chance to publish on the
         | Switch (or PS4/5 or Xbox). The big platforms have really
         | loosened up access to their stores and SDKs.
        
           | bogwog wrote:
           | > The big platforms have really loosened up access to their
           | stores and SDKs.
           | 
           | If by "the big platforms" you mean Nintendo and Xbox, then
           | yes. Sony is still as shitty about it as ever.
           | 
           | The only difference today is that it's certainly easier to
           | find a publisher who has an SDK, so you don't have to apply
           | for one yourself.
           | 
           | IIRC, getting approved for a Sony SDK requires a hefty down
           | payment, proof of a physical office space, and you have to
           | submit the resumes of your development team and hope Sony
           | thinks they're good enough. Then you have to wait many months
           | to hear back. I think you even need to have a project under
           | development, or at least a complete design document.
        
             | zxzax wrote:
             | How does that even work in practice? Does the team have to
             | ship a bunch of successful Switch and Xbox games first
             | before their resumes are viewed as good enough? And it
             | seems like they would have to plan to ship the project
             | under development on one of those other consoles, just in
             | case they don't get approved?
        
           | duxup wrote:
           | Agreed, better chance to publish.
           | 
           | Although, not sure what would get published, there's not much
           | of a game that anyone has ever seen according to the posts on
           | HN.
           | 
           | Not sure access to an SDK was really the biggest challenge.
        
       | dec0dedab0de wrote:
       | Interestingly enough, I bet the idea of staying in a room with a
       | shower, and food delivery for 100 days doesn't seem like that big
       | of deal to most people anymore.
        
         | shkkmo wrote:
         | It's the "no internet access" part that puts it outside of most
         | people's experience still.
        
           | thih9 wrote:
           | This was couple of years ago; at that time internet wasn't
           | that popular or practical (even though it was still extremely
           | popular and practical). Perhaps today that rule wouldn't be
           | there.
        
         | jgon wrote:
         | Isn't that basically solitary confinement, something we
         | consider to be cruel and unusual punishment? I would actually
         | challenge anyone to make it past 30 or even 50 days under those
         | circumstances without losing it. I bet it is much, _much_
         | harder than you think.
        
           | netr0ute wrote:
           | Most people did exactly that a year ago.
        
             | moate wrote:
             | "Most" people did not go through the pandemic entirely
             | alone. The vast majority of people in the world live with
             | _someone_ (roommate, family, romantic partner, etc).
             | 
             | Also, depending on where you live in the world, "most"
             | people did not stay entirely away from all humans at all
             | times for more than a few weeks. Plenty of people were
             | buying their own groceries, and leaving the house for other
             | tasks.
             | 
             | "Many people were isolated from the outside world in ways
             | they haven't been previously during the pandemic lockdowns'
             | is a perfectly cromulent and accurate statement, but I
             | don't get this "let's compare the pandemic to some man
             | doing a dramatic publicity stunt for his game, possibly due
             | to underlying mental health issues."
             | 
             | /rant
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | overgard wrote:
       | There's a lot of crazy in here, but I can relate in a way.
       | 
       | When I was young (a teenager), I really wanted to be a video game
       | designer. Well, more than a designer, I wanted to be a full on
       | creator, a rock star like Sid Meier or John Carmack.
       | 
       | So I started making a game engine. I didn't really know exactly
       | what I was making, I just had various ideas that I was collecting
       | and coming up with and attaching to this game engine. At first it
       | was pretty impressive, I had written a 3d first person shooter
       | game engine from scratch at like 13 years old. I had made all the
       | art myself (badly). I made a few demos for competitions, even won
       | some of them and got some prizes. At a certain point though, I
       | was just too attached to all this work I had put into this game
       | engine, but I had no idea what I really wanted to make with it,
       | because I honestly kind of sucked at game design and writing and
       | never really put in the time to learn those disciplines. So I
       | became weirdly attached to my "game", even though it wasn't
       | really much of anything concrete. And realistically my game
       | engine was "impressive for a 14 year old" but not impressive
       | overall.
       | 
       | Luckily, I didn't fall into crazy mental illness like this guy.
       | At some point after tinkering with it for a few years I realized
       | it was a lost cause because I didn't know what to do with it.
       | 
       | The trap a lot of creatives or potential-creatives fall into is
       | falling in love with a project that isn't going anywhere. If you
       | want to be a creative person, you need to know how to spin a lot
       | of plates and let go of something if it has just run out of
       | steam. I think in Bob's case, it's clear that this project was
       | always attached to his identity rather than simply being a
       | project. (I mean, it's in the name). That's really dangerous. You
       | aren't your work. You should never let a project, an art piece,
       | even a company, become your identity.
       | 
       | Bob locking himself in a room as a protest is obviously crazy;
       | but I think in a way it becomes more understandable when you
       | realize that this wasn't just a project to him, it was his entire
       | identity. Nintendo was essentially denying him what he thought to
       | be his existence. That's totally bananas on his part, but I think
       | that covers why someone would do something like that.
        
         | kh_hk wrote:
         | ouch.. that hit home
        
         | SCNP wrote:
         | Your description reminded me a lot of TempleOS. Another project
         | created from scratch by a single developer (possibly with
         | mental illness) that is going nowhere.
        
           | elliottcarlson wrote:
           | Terry Davis was diagnosed with schizophrenia; has passed away
           | in 2018.
        
           | caymanjim wrote:
           | You're thinking of Terry Davis[1]. No doubt about the mental
           | illness. He died a few years ago, and I don't think anyone
           | else is developing TempleOS.
           | 
           | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_A._Davis
        
             | EtherTyper wrote:
             | There's multiple semi-active forks of TempleOS.
             | 
             | https://github.com/ZenithOS/ZenithOS
             | https://github.com/minexew/Shrine
             | https://github.com/tinkeros/TinkerOS
        
         | tudorw wrote:
         | my work is my life is my art, are you sure you are not at least
         | partly your work, I find it an odd idea that you can detach
         | work from 'life' as if it exists in a separate continuum.
        
       | shawabawa3 wrote:
       | from his website it seems like his protest might have caused him
       | to lose his grip on reality... https://bobsgame.com/ or perhaps a
       | mental illness was what caused him to lock himself in his room
       | for a 100 days in the first place
        
         | MrBuddyCasino wrote:
         | Oh wow, that smells a lot like Terry A. Davis v2.0. I'm looking
         | forward to HolyC++.
        
           | GranPC wrote:
           | Bob did actually meet Terry A. Davis at some point, around
           | 3-4 years ago!
        
             | hypertele-Xii wrote:
             | Is it contagious?
        
               | GranPC wrote:
               | That's not a very nice thing to say about two individuals
               | that you probably haven't ever spoken to.
        
         | saiojd wrote:
         | Wow, that site is really quite something. Reads like an art
         | piece.
        
       | WoodenChair wrote:
       | I had never heard about this, but my first reaction is that I
       | feel bad for this guy, because if you consider that he was self
       | taught he really was very talented. Checkout the gameplay videos.
       | He wrote all of that himself in C++ and did the graphics with
       | seemingly no training. I'm not saying it would've been a great
       | game, because I don't know that, just that he as an individual
       | could've been successful.
       | 
       | I read the book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels [0] last year and it
       | includes the story of the guy who created Stardew Valley. He also
       | spent five years on it, working alone. He also was self taught
       | and did the graphics himself. It was even kind of a similar type
       | of game. I actually think Bob could've made Stardew Valley. It
       | sounds like mental illness got in the way. One question we have
       | to ask ourselves is what came first--the mental illness or the
       | game development. Did the whole experience of the isolated game
       | development actually lead to the mental illness?
       | 
       | By the way, I don't recommend Blood, Sweat, and Pixels as a
       | whole, but I do recommend the chapter on Stardew Valley. It's
       | inspirational (or fatiguing because that guy worked so hard with
       | no clear reward coming) for indie developers.
       | 
       | [0]: https://amzn.to/3ya9Y6A
       | 
       | Edit Addition: I feel bad for writing about the developer in the
       | past tense. There is no reason he couldn't still be successful in
       | life.
        
         | danbolt wrote:
         | I bought Blood, Sweat, and Pixels because I want to support
         | Jason Schreier and the sort of nonfiction he's writing, but
         | I've been reading it after coming off Masters of Doom and it
         | just doesn't hit the same.
        
         | folkhack wrote:
         | > One question we have to ask ourselves is what came first--the
         | mental illness or the game development
         | 
         | Just watched the "Bob vs. Nintendo" documentary where they
         | quote some weird autobiography he posted to his site where he
         | admits to killing a kitten earlier in his life:
         | 
         | > "I got a kitten, named it Mew, and accidentally killed it the
         | first night I had it. I was stoned, and it woke me up somehow.
         | I got angry and put it in a big plastic bucket in the closet,
         | half asleep and confused. In the morning it was dead - it had
         | suffocated. [...] I shoved me further into a haze"
         | 
         | The thought of that is horrifying to me. This guy has clear
         | impulse control issues and reminds me of someone who's
         | BPD/manic enough that their actions killed an innocent animal.
         | "I was stoned and angry" isn't a valid excuse for suffocating
         | an animal - this guy is wired wrong. Assuming this event
         | happened before the whole "Bob's Game" fiasco I'd definitely
         | say the mental illness came first.
         | 
         | I'm going to go pet my cat now...
        
         | sva_ wrote:
         | _> He wrote all of that himself in C++ and did the graphics
         | with seemingly no training._
         | 
         | From the Wikipedia article:
         | 
         |  _> The author says that he wrote the game originally in C,
         | switched then to Java, and later converted it with an automatic
         | code converter to C++._
        
           | WoodenChair wrote:
           | Okay, whether C or C++ or Java, the point is writing the game
           | without ever having an industry job or educational situation
           | where you'd have mentorship is a huge accomplishment.
        
         | elliekelly wrote:
         | There's an Apple TV+ original show called Mythic Quest[1] about
         | a video game company and they did a really great episode about
         | game development and mental health. The show is mostly a comedy
         | and written by some of the people from Always Sunny.
         | 
         | [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythic_Quest
        
       | Taylor_OD wrote:
       | Very good video on the topic. It's odd.
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A47maEySTdI
        
         | alickz wrote:
         | Great channel
         | 
         | I particularly liked the Ulillillia and Nasubi videos
        
           | tombert wrote:
           | I watch the Ulillillia video whenever I feel depressed about
           | the world. It's excellent and bizarrely kind of inspiring to
           | me.
        
             | entelechy0 wrote:
             | same af
        
             | redisman wrote:
             | I remember following him and Bobs game back in the day.
             | Outsider art for video games
        
         | GranPC wrote:
         | Take that video with a big grain of salt - some of the
         | information there is incorrect and the timeline is somewhat
         | wrong.
        
           | Taylor_OD wrote:
           | Do you have a better overview? The video did bounce around a
           | bit but what was incorrect?
        
             | GranPC wrote:
             | I'd have to watch it over again but here are some details I
             | remember being wrong:
             | 
             | - The "live video feed" on the homepage was not actually a
             | live video feed for a long time - it was the same images on
             | a loop.
             | 
             | - The Nintendo World Store was partially faked, with some
             | of the scenes being actually filmed at his home and then
             | spliced in. It was not as egregious as it looked - in fact,
             | one of the corny details was that a police siren sound
             | effect was added in post.
             | 
             | - Bob adding himself and his struggles to "bob's game" was
             | not a result of being rejected for the devkit, it was
             | already designed to be like that.
             | 
             | My understanding is that nobody really _gets_ Bob and
             | "bob's game" - it truly is quite hard to explain. You sort
             | of need to have been there.
        
               | redisman wrote:
               | Agreed. I was there from the early days from one of the
               | forums I was at. Probably something awful. He pivoted so
               | many times, it was for the longest time supposed to be
               | the most expansive and realistic (2D) RPG there ever was.
               | Then the Nintendo drama and the pivots to puzzle games
               | and at some point I stopped paying attention
        
       | stalco wrote:
       | Is this part of the real game?
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzdVpfk7yLs
        
         | GranPC wrote:
         | No, that video was produced only for the campaign.
        
       | AdmiralAsshat wrote:
       | So...almost 20 years later (started in 2004 according to
       | Wikipedia): do we actually have a game yet?
        
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       (page generated 2021-06-30 23:02 UTC)